Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-03-Speech-1-129"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060703.18.1-129"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Lucas and thank her for her report. I should also like to thank the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety for unanimously adopting the relevant report and the European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism and its opinion draftsman, Mrs Hennis-Plasschaert, for agreeing to include aviation in the European Union greenhouse gas trading system.
The Commission is continuing and will continue its efforts towards third countries, in accordance with what you too said earlier, in order to abolish this tax exemption for kerosene, which clearly does not have positive environmental results.
Furthermore, I should like to make a comment about the geographical scope of the trading system: the Commission has proposed including all flights from airports in the European Union and the parliamentary committee has proposed including all flights to or from airports in the European Union and flights which cross the airspace of the European Union. We consider that the Commission's approach is simpler and more effective and could make it easier to extend the system to other countries.
Without doubt, however, as Parliament and as the airlines themselves and non-governmental organisations have proposed including all flights to and from airports in the European Union, the Commission will examine this approach during the course of the detailed study of the impact this will have before submitting its proposal during the codecision procedure which we hope to have before the end of the current year.
Finally, I should like to say that, without doubt, in addition to including aviation in the trading system, there are other measures, such as those you mention: improvement of air traffic, investment in research, so that more environmentally-friendly technologies can be developed, improved and used, the possible use of biofuels in airlines – although this last option is still at the research stage – and a series of other measures which can be applied in parallel in order to mitigate the impact of aviation on climate change.
The aviation sector contributes approximately 3% to the production of carbon dioxide in the European Union, but this rate is increasing rapidly. As Mrs Lucas said earlier, in a few years' time, by 2012, it will have increased by 150% in comparison with 1990, which is approximately just under 5% per annum.
This rate of increase in carbon dioxide is, of course, helping to exacerbate the greenhouse effect and it should be noted that it is not only carbon dioxide which aircraft emit; there are other side effects, such as emissions which help to create other greenhouse gases and, as such, the contribution of aviation to the greenhouse effect is much greater than the 3% reported for carbon dioxide.
As Mrs Lucas also said, the Kyoto Protocol does not extend to limiting emissions of carbon dioxide by aircraft, although there is, of course, a reference in Article 2, paragraph 2. This is precisely why the European Commission will continue its present efforts and step up its efforts in future in order to include aviation and maritime transport in any system agreed for post- 2012.
However, this period is still several years away and, that being so, the gas trading system now needs, following the European Parliament and Council codecision procedure, to include gases so that we can limit and aviation can help to limit the greenhouse effect and so that this sector does not end up at an advantage compared with the other sectors which help to limit the greenhouse effect. In other words, we do not want the other sectors to fare worse than aviation.
That is why it is particularly encouraging both that the relevant reports have been submitted by the parliamentary committees and also that the Council of Ministers for the Environment of the European Union and the Heads of State or Government of the European Union also agreed at the European Council last December to include aviation in the trading system and called on the European Commission to table the relevant legislation under the codecision procedure.
I should like to make three comments on the points made by the Committee on the Environment and the points raised earlier by Mrs Lucas:
First of all, would it be better to have a closed or open system for aviation? The European Parliament committee report wants a closed system, a separate system for aviation, either as a permanent system or in a pilot stage up to 2012. The Commission has taken a different approach: it considers that the broader the scope of the trading system, the less it will cost to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and, as a result, aviation will have lower costs without reducing the benefit to the environment.
Similarly, I should like to follow on from Mrs Lucas's thoughts on a tax on kerosene, the fuel used for aircraft. It is a fact, as you said earlier, that there are bilateral agreements which basically exempt aviation from payment of tax. Of course, the European Commission has been passing Community legislation since 2003 allowing the Member States to tax fuel on their domestic flights and, following agreement with another country, to allow tax on flights between the two countries."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples